Atheist Websites

Atheist Web Sites and Blogs

There are a great many atheist websites and blogs on the internet. Meetup alone carries 545 atheist Meetups whose memberships vary from two to several hundred. Websites can focus on local or regional concerns. The focus of this list is on websites that address atheist issues on a broader scale. Atheist Scholar plans to add to this list over time.

When we use quote marks the statement is coming directly from the site. Without quote marks the statement is our summary impression of the site.

“Since 1963, American Atheists has been the premier organization laboring for the civil liberties of atheists and the total, absolute separation of government and religion. The organization was founded by Madelyn Murray O’Hair as a result of her successful legal battle against mandatory school prayer and bible recitation. American Atheists maintains one of the largest archives of atheist Literature. The archive contains over 25,000 books and a growing collection of over 500,000 pamphlets. The library is open for research on a limited schedule."

"Atheist Alliance International's vision is a secular world where public policy, scientific inquiry and education are not influenced by religious beliefs, but based upon sound reasoning, rationality and evidence."

“When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to leave the world better off than it would have been if I had not existed. This started a quest, through 12 years of college and on to today, to try to discover what a “better” world consists of. I have written a book describing that journey that you can find on my website. In this blog, I will keep track of the issues I have confronted since then.”

“Our philosophy of Atheism accepts the natural world as all there is. To find one’s purpose and be responsible for one’s own life is exciting. To seek a peaceful world through work and friendship and civic action is life-affirming.” Marie Alena Castle, March 1994.

“Despite the lack of activity recently here on the blog, I have been quite busy with atheism projects. One of them is compiling an up to date, comprehensive bibliography of the most important works on atheism in philosophy in the last 50 years for Oxford Univ. Press. Here’s a draft of my list of a hundred or so sources. If you want to understand the state of the discussion in the 21st century, you need to know these works.”

According to the recently released 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) Americans are increasingly self-identifying as affirmatively secular (e.g. atheist, secular, humanist, bright, etc.) and embracing a naturalistic worldview (a philosophy of life that does not involve a belief in God, higher powers, or anything supernatural.) What is the nature and what are the consequences of holding and professing a naturalist worldview in a country where 70 percent of the population believes in a personal God? (Kosmin &Keysar, 2009.)"

“Atheists United is a positive atheist community that fosters a supportive environment for its members and a welcoming attitude toward its guests.

This community works to improve the status of atheists in the larger society and of atheism in the public discourse by:

Promoting separation of government and religion. AU defends the separation of government from religion by encouraging civic engagement and activism among its members to elevate the awareness of secular issues to the general public and consolidate the political will of non-believers.”

“Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit educational organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, AU works in the courts, in Congress and the state legislatures, at the White House and in the arena of public opinion. We address an array of pressing issues. We encourage you to learn about our projects, lawsuits and out-of-court successes. You may also want to read our Form 990. AU is led by Executive Director Barry W. Lynn and governed by AU’s Board of Trustees. If you share our commitment to church-state separation, please join us today. We welcome your support in this important cause.”

“The Center for Atheism (CFA) was established by New York City Atheists as a separate and independent national organization to propose, develop and be a catalyst for new national activities supporting the objectives of atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, skeptics, secularists, and separation-of-church/state advocates.”

Austin Cline has been actively involved in educating people about atheism, agnosticism, and secular humanism on the Internet for over 15 years. Austin Cline was a Regional Director for the Council of Secular Humanism and a former Publicity Coordinator for the Campus Free Thought Alliance. Austin Cline has also lectured on religious violence, science, and skepticism.

"My name is Luke Muehlhauser. I grew up an evangelical Christian in Minnesota, USA. At age 21 I began to study the Historical Jesus and the philosophy of religion. I lost my faith in January 2008. Now, I’m an outspoken advocate of rational thinking and naturalism."

“Since February 2006, Daylight Atheism has had 1,265 posts, 42,573 comments, and 7.8 million total views, representing about 1.2 million unique visitors. So far this year, I’m averaging over 11,000 total hits and over 3,000 unique visitors per day, which is well above the historical norm. As of today, the single most-viewed post of all time is September 2008’s Ten Questions to ask Your Pastor, with over 70,000 individual page views.”

“The nonprofit Freedom From Religion Foundation works to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism, and to promote the constitutional principle of separation between church and state. The Foundation is the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and skeptics) with over 17,000 members."

“Cutting”, “abrasive”, “sarcastic”, “offensive” … These are just some of the words used to describe the Freethinker magazine, which was launched in Britain in 1881 and has continued publishing without a break ever since. But it was the word “blasphemous”, dropped from the lips of a hostile judge, that that got its founder and first editor G.W. Foote into serious trouble. As a result mainly of irreligious cartoons published in the Christmas, 1882, edition, the judge declared the issue “blasphemous” and Foote was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
But the magazine, under caretaker editor Edward E Aveling, kept rolling off the presses, to the chagrin of the Home Office and the police, and to the delight of a growing number of readers who could hardly believe that any magazine in respectable, Victorian England, would dare attack religion in such an aggressive manner. It is still rolling off the presses!

“Since its founding in 1995, The Secular Web has grown from a small site spawned in a dorm at Texas A&M University into the most comprehensive free thought resource on the internet. We offer thousands of outstanding essays, reviews and critiques, covering everything from articles of general interest to scholarly papers by prominent notheist philosophers, scientists, historians, and others…”

“The Non-religion and Secularity Research Network (NSRN) is an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers; the network was founded in 2008 to centralize existing research on the topic of non-religion and secularity and to facilitate discussing in this area. It also addresses theoretical and empirical relationships between non-religion, religion and secularity.”

Barry Wilson lists many atheist web sites with a description for each one. This is a very good starting point for exploring atheism on the web. For an idea of the number of atheist web sites available see his listing for Huge List of Atheist Websites -

Biologist and blogger PZ Myers speaks out on the war on science, intelligent design, and the sexual habits of giant squid.

For about a dozen years, PZ Myers has been among the fiercest, most public critics of the intelligent design movement. An early convert to the internet, he first embarked on the mission by posting on a Usenet group called Talkorigins. Over the years, he has poked away at ID in other forums, too, most notably the well-regarded evolution-themed group blog called the Panda’s Thumb.

“Our member organizations are established 501 (c) 3 nonprofits who serve atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheistic Americans. Their purpose in founding the coalition was to formalize a cooperative structure for visible, unified activism to improve the civic situation of citizens with a naturalistic worldview. Our staff lobbies U.S. Congress on issues of special concern to our constituency.”

The Steifel Freethought Foundation

“We are a 501(c)3 non-profit private foundation that provides financial support and volunteer
strategy consulting to the Freethought Movement. Our mission is to gain respect for freethinkers and ensure the complete separation of church and state.We envision a world where government favors liberty over dogma and freethinkers are overt,
united and influential.We strive to promote the humanist values of love, integrity, reason and freedom.”

“We created Support Atheism.com because we care about you. We care that becoming an atheist is horribly difficult in many families and communities. We care that young atheists (already suffering the hardships that come with growing up) are struggling with difficult celestial/existential questions, and this skepticism might not be popular with friends. We care whether the people and leaders within this world base their beliefs upon what can be determined most true and useful.”

“Founded in 1995, the Texas Freedom Network is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization of more than 45,000 religious and community leaders. Based in Austin, the Texas Freedom Network acts as the state’s watchdog, monitoring far-right issues, organizations, money and leaders. The organization has been instrumental in defeating initiatives backed by the religious right in Texas, including private school vouchers and textbook censorship at the Texas State Board of Education.”